SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON PRESENTING A PETITION OF THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL
LEAGUE, PRAYING UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION BY ACT OF CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 9,
1864.
MR. PRESIDENT,--I offer the petition now on the desk before me. It is
too bulky for me to take up. I need not add that it is too bulky for
any of our pages to carry.
This petition marks a stage of public opinion in the history of
Slavery, and also in the suppression of the Rebellion. As it is short,
I will read it.
“_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States_:--
“The undersigned, women of the United States above the age of
eighteen years, earnestly pray that your honorable body will
pass, at the earliest practicable day, an act emancipating all
persons of African descent held to involuntary service or labor
in the United States.”
There is also a duplicate of the petition, signed by “men above the age
of eighteen years.”
It will be perceived that the petition is in rolls. Each roll
represents a State. For instance, here is New York with a list of
seventeen thousand seven hundred and six names, Illinois with fifteen
thousand three hundred and eighty, and Massachusetts with eleven
thousand six hundred and forty-one. But I will read the abstract with
which I have been furnished.
State. Men. Women. Total.
New York 6,519 11,187 17,706
Illinois 6,382 8,998 15,380
Massachusetts 4,249 7,392 11,641
Pennsylvania 2,259 6,366 8,625
Ohio 3,676 4,654 8,330
Michigan 1,741 4,441 6,182
Iowa 2,025 4,014 6,039
Maine 1,225 4,362 5,587
Wisconsin 1,639 2,391 4,030
Indiana 1,075 2,591 3,666
New Hampshire 393 2,261 2,654
New Jersey 824 1,709 2,533
Rhode Island 827 1,451 2,278
Vermont 375 1,183 1,558
Connecticut 393 1,162 1,555
Minnesota 396 1,094 1,490
West Virginia 82 100 182
Maryland 115 50 165
Kansas 84 74 158
Delaware 67 70 137
Nebraska 13 20 33
Kentucky 21 .. 21
Louisiana .. 14 14
Citizens of the United States living in
New Brunswick 19 17 36
------ ------ ------
34,399 65,601 100,000
These several petitions are consolidated into one, being another
illustration of the motto on our coin,--_E pluribus unum_.
This unprecedented petition is signed by one hundred thousand men and
women, who unite in this unparalleled number to support its prayer.
They are from all parts of the country, and from every condition of
life: from the seaboard, fanned by the free airs of the ocean, and
from the Mississippi and the prairies of the West, fanned by the free
airs which vitalize that extensive region; from the families of the
educated and uneducated, rich and poor, of every profession, business,
and calling in life, representing every sentiment, thought, hope,
passion, activity, intelligence, that inspires, strengthens, and adorns
our social system. Here they are, a mighty army, one hundred thousand
strong, without arms or banners, the advance-guard of a yet larger army.
Though memorable for numbers, these petitioners are more memorable for
the prayer in which they unite. They ask nothing less than Universal
Emancipation; and this they ask directly at the hands of Congress.
No reason is assigned. The prayer speaks. It is simple, positive. So
far as it proceeds from the women of the country, it is naturally a
petition and not an argument. But I need not remind the Senate that
there is no reason so strong as the reason of the heart. Do not all
great thoughts come from the heart?
It is not for me at this moment to offer reasons which the one hundred
thousand petitioners have forborne. But I may properly add, that,
naturally and obviously, they all feel in their hearts, what reason
and knowledge confirm, not only that Slavery _as a Unit_, one and
indivisible, is the guilty origin of the Rebellion, but that its
influence everywhere, even outside the Rebel States, is hostile to the
Union, always impairing loyalty, and sometimes openly menacing the
national cause. It requires no difficult logic to conclude that such
a monster, wherever it shows its head, is a _National Enemy_, to be
pursued and destroyed as such, or at least a nuisance to the national
cause, to be abated as such.
The petitioners know well that Congress is the depository of those
supreme powers by which rebellion, alike in its root and distant
offshoots, may be surely crushed, while unity and peace are permanently
assured. They know well that the action of Congress may be with the
coöperation of the Slave-Masters, or even without their coöperation,
under the overruling law of military necessity, or the commanding
precept of the Constitution to guaranty a republican form of
government. Above all, they know well that to save the country from
peril, especially to save the national life, there is no power in the
ample arsenal of self-defence which Congress may not grasp; for to
Congress, under the Constitution, belongs the prerogative of the Roman
Dictator, to see that the Republic receives no detriment. Therefore to
Congress these petitioners appeal.
I ask the reference of the petition to the Select Committee on Slavery
and Freedmen.
An earnest debate ensued, which ended in the reference of the
petition.